WOUB: Two Doctors Share Their Pandemic Perspectives

In March of 2020, as the threat of COVID-19 came into sharp focus, two Athens-area physicians weighed the information known about the spread of the coronavirus against the needs of their families.

Ultimately, they determined they needed to make a major change.

To protect their families and their patients, Jane Broecker, MD and Lucy Bucher, DO, both OB/GYNs with OhioHealth Physician Group Heritage College made the difficult decision to move out of their family homes and into a rental home with each other.

“It felt like a duty,” said Bucher. “As healthcare providers and anyone who works in that type of profession know, you sometimes have to do hard things to help take care of people and do the right thing.”

“But the uncertainty surrounding this decision to move out of my home in order to protect my family I think was the hardest part, because we didn’t know how long we would be living apart, how bad things were going to get, what the next step was,” said Bucher. “That was really hard—the sense of uncertainty around it.”

They lived together until June.

In a radio segment produced by WOUB Public Media, the physicians shared their personal stories of how they and their families had to make major adjustments during the early part of the pandemic, what it’s like to be on the front lines now and how the public can help.